Binary choices stifle authors. Does your story end in Success or Failure? Does your Main Character Change or Remain Steadfast? Dramatica questions like these offend seasoned and fresh authors alike. Turns out these questions might not be as binary as they seem.

All things in Dramatica revolve around the quad. Take any term or item on the Dramatica chart and you’ll find three others in direct relation with it. The item directly across from the one you are examining represents the other choice in a binary “question.” You might be tempted to think of it as the opposite but it really is much more than that. The opposite of proaction is inaction, yet the Dramatica opposite of proaction is reaction. Reaction represents the most dynamic conflict to proaction.

So these two terms clash against each other in a dramatic piece. You can have them butt heads and fight each other, much like a Protagonist faces off against an Antagonist. But if you want to find the meaning of that conflict you measure it up against the other two terms in the quad.

This is why the questions of Change/Steadfast or Success/Failure are much more than just simple binary questions.

Change/Steadfast/Success/Failure Quad

For the Change/Steadfast quad, the other two items actually turn out to be Success/Failure. You measure the meaning of whether your Main Character changes or sticks to his guns by whether or not the story as a whole ends successfully or not. Was the Main Character right in changing? Did it lead to success or did his changing result in a miserable failure?

And what if he decided to ignore the pleas of those around him and continue to do what he’s always done. Was he right about that? Did it help to acheive that greater goal everyone was interested in or did it turn out to be a hopeless gesture?

Good/Bad/Success/Failure Quad

Another binary question that leaves many an author cold is the question of whether or not the Main Character feels bad or good at the end of story. How can you possibly write a great story with such a simplistic question? Shouldn’t we strive to write stories with endings more complex than that?

As with the question of Change or Steadfast, it turns out that the true meaning of how your Main Character feels at the end of your story can only be understood when it is measured against the success or failure of the story as a whole.

What does it mean for your Main Character to feel good at the end? If the efforts in the larger picture were a rousing success, that would have quite a different meaning then if your Main Character felt good and everyone failed at what they were trying to accomplish.

Conversely, imagine if the larger story was a triumphant success, yet your Main Character felt miserable. Doesn’t that hold a different meaning than if your story was a complete downer, i.e., your Main Character feels miserable and all other efforts failed horribly?

While the questions asked in Dramatica may seem simplistic at first glance, only their true meaning can be appreciated when they are examined in the proper context. While you are making a binary choice of yes or no, good or bad, you are also simultaneously setting up complex meaningful relationships.

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